The Witcher Season 4 spoiler interview with Lauren Schmidt Hissrich

0:08Welcome to Pilot Plus, your extended guide to every show that matters, and this, our special spoiler interview for The Witcher Season 4. Now, as you may not be surprised to hear, Boydie and Kay are not fans of fantasy, and therefore have not joined me for this particular spoiler special. So this is, quite literally, a James monologue. Now, look, you may say, James, surely almost every episode of Pilot Plus is essentially a James monologue, and I get exactly what you're saying, but in this particular case, it is just me talking about The Witcher. Except it's not just me, because I am joined on this particular spoiler special podcast by showrunner Lauren Schmidt-Hissrich, who used to work on The West Wing, oh yes, and we had a big old geeky chat about all the things that happened this season.

0:53For our full review of this season of The Witcher, you can listen to Pilot Plus from a week or two ago, but as I'm sure you can imagine I had a thoroughly good time with it I do enjoy a little bit of Witcher goodness and I'm very glad to have Geralt back in my life even if it is a slightly different Geralt but anyway, like I say I had a chat with Lauren Schmidt-Histrick about all of the major things that happened in this season got her to talk about the battle got her to talk about Regis got her to talk about new Geralt and the framing device and all of that good stuff so if you want to hear me geeking out about it with her well, you've come to the right place so, without further ado here is me talking to Lauren Schmidt-Hissrig about The Witcher Season 4.

1:31Well, Lauren, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Lots and lots to talk about here. Yes. But if I can, I would like to start about the Battle of Monte Calvo. Oh, okay. So, yeah, I want to do an anatomy of a battle sequence, because this is, what, a 30-minute sequence? Yes. There's a lot going on. And genuinely, I'm just curious, how do you go about constructing that from the ground up? Because if I'm right in saying this is an original sequence, this is not in the books. Correct. So you had complete carte blanche to do whatever you wanted. Correct. Where did you start? So I think for us, when we start with a huge battle sequence, and I think the Battle of Monte Calvo, we knew that it was going to be the body of the episode.

2:06You have to choose a character, choose a POV and go from there. Because one of the things we found out very early, and I had not worked on a lot of action shows before this, is that you have a battle where someone doesn't change from the beginning to the end. It's so boring. It's just people clashing swords. So we knew that this battle couldn't just be, you know, people doing sort of magic signs at one another, that we had to have growth and change. And it really was Yennefer's battle. And I think there is probably my favorite moment in the battle is this sort of, I would call it like a Western standoff between she and Vilgefortz.

2:43And she's kind of goading Vilgefortz there. She's bringing him into a place that is their home. And it gives them home court advantage. But he is still the more powerful sorcerer, and he's going to bring people that he's prepared to lose. And I think that's where you get sort of this clash, which is Vilgefortz brings people that he is fine if they perish and die. And Yennefer, this is her family. I mean, she is their leader now after Tissaia's death. So I think you have these sort of two opposing forces, which is you have someone fighting with their heart, and then you have someone fighting for power.

3:18And that's always sort of what we kept in mind. we had this idea of, I love that I get to talk about this. We had this idea of bringing Tissaia back for this episode. And to us, when I was going through that sort of, you know, what is the POV and how do we find the emotionality in this battle? It was really about Yennefer channeling her mother. And Javi, who was the writer of the episode, was like, what if she actually channels her mother? Calling Miana Bering and saying, can you please come back for one day? She was so excited. There is a line that she says where she is talking about her power.

3:57And she says, like, you know, I'm actually learning who I am and I am loving it. And that's something that we came back through like the entire season, which is it's not just a battle. It's the entire season of these women finding their voices. I kind of answered your question there. I went everywhere. No, but absolutely true. And I remember talking to a number of people about this, is that action without character growth, exactly as you say, is just Transformers throwing each other into buildings, right? Like, there's nothing going on. Because it should always be about moving forward the plot and moving forward the character development.

4:28Yes. And there's a lot of this here. But do you, like, when it's being written, when it's being scripted, do you focus on the character beats or do you sort of chart out, do you lock in all of the specific visual action beats as well? Because you've got magic artillery in this. There's Bofu in this. You've got witches, you've got druids, you've got sorcerers. There's a lot going on. Like, is that incredibly detailed on the page? So one of the things, yes and no. So one of the things that we had with this battle is that we have a training sequence in an earlier episode. And it was really fun for the writers to go, okay, we don't just want a training sequence in a battle.

5:02We need to see that training sequence pay off. We need to understand that the things that they're learning in this episode are going to come back and help them in the latter episode. But the truth is, I'm not an action designer. So this is where I go to Chris Cowan, who's our spectacular action designer and second unit director, where I always say I've mapped out some stuff or the writer has mapped out some stuff, but like make it better. And that's always the challenge, which is, you know, I'm very sort of forthright about the character beats that I want and the moments that are so important to me.

5:33But like, bring me your best, make my ideas better. That's what we really do on this show. and I think we do it across the board, but action especially, because it's just, you know, it's a place where it's not my forte. So why am I going to pretend that it is? Let someone who is a genius at this make it the best. And visually, there's so much going on, but there are also key character moments. You mentioned the one with Yennefer and Vilgefortz, but also Vesemir. Vesemir. That's quite a lot. And also that's a new development as well that you've introduced here. Why did you want to kill Vesemir?

6:04We didn't want to kill Vesemir. But you did. We did anyway. So that came from two places. One, we knew that the witchers come back in the books in a later story that I won't get into right now. So we haven't seen them since season two. And we started to think, okay, it's one thing in books when someone reappears, you know, two chapters later or two novels later. For us, it was like that was like five years ago. So one, we wanted to remind our audience who these characters are. Two, we wanted to show how the continent and this war are changing the characters that we love. And one of the things that we think is great about the Witchers is they have decided not to be part of, you know, the battles of men.

6:46And I think you get this growth in this episode where Bessemer comes and says, we'll help train you. We'll help get you ready for this battle, but it's not our fight. And I'm not losing anyone else for this. and then realizing that part of what you do when you're part of a community, when you're part of a society, when you're part of a family, is that you change and grow and you're willing to sacrifice things that you weren't ever before. And it's like, I'm going to kill Vilgefortz and I'm going to do it for Siri and I'm going to do it for Geralt and I'm going to do it for you. It's so moving and emotional.

7:21The death of Vesemirs. We always think about deaths not just for shock value, which I think is a lot of people go like, oh, you just want to shock the audience. But also deaths change people. And I think for us, you have the death of Vesemir, but then you have Yennefer telling Gelt about the death of Vesemir. And you see the impact of losing your father figure on this man. And a man who's currently on a journey to find his own daughter. And to me, that impact is part of why the story pays off. It's not just about, oh my God, I didn't know he was going to die. It's about how, just like in real life, those sort of deaths, those sort of traumas change you fundamentally as a person and change how you see the world.

8:05Because Geralt's interesting in this season, because obviously he's different literally, but also, but just different as a character, because he's physically injured, he's emotionally injured. And I think Dixner kind of gets to the heart of this when he's like, his connections make him weak. And they kind of do, right? They do. I mean, connections can make you weak, but it depends on your definition of weak, right? Because your connections can also make you far stronger. And I think what Geralt would argue is that he is a far stronger and better man as part of a family than a loner witcher, you know, walking through the world.

8:37But I love that you pointed out that it's a different Geralt this season in every way. And this is where the story really, really lent itself to the change of cast. Because Geralt is a completely different character this season, as you mentioned. He had this fight with Vilgefortz. He is gravely injured. It was really important to us to show that. I think, you know, he's not a superhero. He has to heal. He has to actually take the time. that's part of his relationship with Regis, is Regis is saying, like, you're going too fast, you need to slow down, you need to accept help. But I also think something that Liam brings to the character is this sort of deep emotionality and vulnerability that the story lends itself to.

9:20And I'm so glad that we got to, like, let him use that side of his performance and that it fits in perfectly with what the character is going through. Because it is almost a perfect time to change because he changes so much. I think you're absolutely right. I think Liam brings a real sort of almost emotional availability to it. Whereas Henry's Witcher had a very hard edge to it. Slightly scary. Do you know what I mean? It's a slightly different read on the character. Yeah, it's a different read on the character. But again, it really works with the story that we're telling. When we started season one, Geralt literally walked through the world saying, I need no one.

9:55I don't need anyone. In fact, they make me weaker. Fantasy Jack Reacher. Exactly. Exactly. And now you have, by the time you get to season four, this is a man who's fallen in love. You know, Geralt has had a lot of sex in the past, but like Yennefer is Yennefer. And he is a character who has discovered that Ciri isn't just a child surprise. It's his daughter in his soul. And so I think it's just a, it's a completely different read on the character, but because that's what the character is going through. And what I love is that we've been able to flesh Geralt out. that he hasn't been static all through the first four seasons.

10:30And certainly he changes even more in season five. Not that we're talking about that. No, of course. No, of course not. But you kind of do a little bit because you have a framing device here. Yes. But it's more than just a framing device, isn't it? It is. And I kind of want to talk about that. What was the decision there? Because I imagine you had conversations, right? We've got a recasting. We've got to communicate this. And the way you do that with the framing device, but also bringing in the Hikimura and the episode one imagery. and it almost felt to me like you were introducing the idea of an unreliable narrator because she's like, that's not how you tell it.

10:59This is actually how you tell it. So you switch to her point of view and therefore we switch point of view. And it's so funny. I saw something this morning where people were debating, is it the exact scene from season one because we have this Kikamora, but then there's baby Kikamora. So I'm like, what is that? And I love that people are talking about that because unreliable narrator is so true. You know, we constantly return to the idea of stories and storytelling in The Witcher. And, you know, we saw it in season one, toss a coin to your witcher. Yaskier says, you know, like truth doesn't make history.

11:28I'm going to create a story and create a legend for you. And that is, you know, and by the way, halfway through season one, even you as an audience member believe that's who Geralt is. He is a big strapping hero. And it's not actually the character that we're showing all the time. So it was a really fun opportunity to one, play into this aspect that we love about the witcher, the storytelling, to introduce the character of Nimue, who, you know, I think fantasy audiences will realize that Nimue is the name of the Lady of the Lake in Arthurian Legends. And so that, you know, that plays around. May or may not be the title of the final book, but you know.

12:09Maybe, maybe. You know, but then really to get to revisit these poignant moments with Geralt and to say to the audience, what you saw, is that what actually happened? To make them start to question and, of course, introducing a new face to it. I think by the time that you get to the end of that sequence, which is like a seven-minute sequence, that you're just in and you're going, oh, okay, now I'm on this adventure with this Geralt who looks this way and who may or may not have experienced these things in the past. Like, now we're just on. I thought it was a very fun way to play with a reintroduction and to play with, you know, this device.

12:46Yeah. But it's important, I guess. You can't underestimate how important it is to catch people up because there's so much rich storytelling here, but it is quite dense in the best possible way. And the thing that always surprised me was that, and don't take this in any way the wrong way, that The Witcher Season 1 was such a hit because I always maybe underestimate audiences' ability to digest really dense lore. You know, you take something like Foundation on Apple, again, incredibly dense, but people get on board with it. And I wonder if you think, do you think things like, first of all, Peter Jackson's Blood of the Rings, and then latterly, I guess, Game of Thrones, has kind of made people more open to kind of dense, fancy lore?

13:22I think that is absolutely the case. I think that The Witcher arrived to this world at the exact right time, because I think that we had an audience coming off of Game of Thrones. And I was a huge Game of Thrones fan. I hadn't read the books. I knew nothing about the world. And I remember, you know, probably sort of the end of season one, going and looking at a family tree and trying to figure out how everyone was related. and that felt like part of the viewing experience to me. I also think there is a way to watch all of these shows and not dig into the lore that deeply and to just accept what you're seeing in front of you.

13:52And I know that, you know, I think with any adaptation, there's a lot of people, is it true to the books? What are you, you know, are you going your own direction? Is it the video games? And it's like, it is what it is on screen. It's its own original experience. But yeah, I do think I have a funny story about the lore because I do think that you jump into things so quickly. And I will never forget episode one, season one, um, Kelly Lucanville, who was our amazing executive at Netflix. Uh, I turned the script. I'm so proud of it. We're green lighting it. We're going. And she said, um, I think sometime in the first episode, you need to say what a witcher is.

14:29And I was like, what? And she's like, well, it's called the witcher. And you never introduce like what a witcher is. And I was like, oh, right. So we're constantly in this balance of how do you not talk down to the audience? How do you just make them feel like they're on their journey, but also not to make them feel crazy and to give them the right amount of information. Because you can't spoon feed it to them or you're going to turn them off a little bit. Yeah. No one wants that. No, it's part of it is reaching, reaching for the information and trying to kind of like absorb it. Right. But I also think like people also have different expectations in their viewing experience.

15:01And I remember debating this a lot with fans back when I was on Twitter and I was just going crazy talking to people is that so many people would say to me, I didn't understand that there were three timelines until episode four. And I'm like, then you you understood at the exact right moment you did it. And some people loved that. And some people were like, but but but I didn't understand for four episodes. I'm like, well, you're supposed to. It's it also depends on what kind of viewer you are. And you can't write for one type of viewer. You really have to sort of go, how do we get the most, the broadest audience to just enjoy this?

15:38It's entertainment. But part of, I guess, what you do is deciding when to do that and when not to do that. Because in the books, for example, it's like, we don't find out really who Amir is until the very end of the final book. Yes, correct. And it's like, and then you're forced to reassess everything. Oh, so dad, what the hell is going on? But I wonder whether in a TV show, that's not satisfying, is it? if it comes, you need to pull that forward. You need to know earlier. I think Amir is a really interesting one because I do think sometimes you can hold information out. But one of the things that we always sort of, you know, kick the tires with in the writer's room is are we holding this out just for the sake of holding it out?

16:16Does it actually serve our story? The reason I say Amir is interesting is because on the page, you don't know that Dooney and Amir the same person. You don't need to know that they're the same person because you're not seeing them. On our show, we'd met Dooney and we needed to meet Amir. This is going to be one of our bad guys for five seasons. And we can't not see his face for five seasons. And trust me, we played around with, does he wear armor the whole time? Is he in like a Phantom of the Opera mask? And at the end of the day, we were like, okay, no, it's actually more important for us to really build out this character and understand who he is and trust that by the time we get the big reveal in season five, it's still a reveal to Ciri.

16:59It's still new information to her. And we have to trust our actors that they can perform that and still make it feel just as emotional for the audience. And moving things around, I guess, is part of this whole adaptation process. But you bring forward a little bit from Tower of the Swallow. So, Leo Bonhart is something from the next book. And that's a great note to end this season on. So, why did you think, you know what, let's bring him forward. Let's have him turn up here. I mean, we love a bad guy. And he's a great bad guy. And he is probably, I would say, the only unredeemable character that we have ever had.

17:31He doesn't try to have a good side. There is nothing about him that makes you go like, maybe he's just misunderstood. No, he is pure evil. So, you know, one of the things that's interesting, again, about adapting from the books is that we learn a lot of the story of Ciri and the Rats through her telling Visigoda, which is a story for a later day. But we knew that it wasn't going to work for our audience to try to tell an entire chapter of Ciri's life in flashback. So obviously we wanted to bring that story sort of to the forefront and make it Ciri's story in season four. And part of that story is meeting their foe and setting Ciri up for what I think is the most harrowing journey that she's going to be going through yet.

18:15And I also think, you know, season four and five are in some ways one extended story. It's the search for Ciri. It's the desire to kill Vilgeforts, make the continent safe. And we knew that we needed some drops at the end of season four to make it feel like a satisfying season. And I think Leo is one of those. Definitely. Good. One last thing I want to touch on is, of course, Regis, who is a vampire. Yes. And I was trying to work out, because the conversation that Carol and Regis have when they meet is incredibly loaded. Yes. And there are lots of like very sort of subtle. So he knows right away, presumably, that he's a vampire.

18:55Yes, he does. And yet he doesn't feel the need to do anything about it. No. So, you know, I think higher vampires in our world is our first time meeting one. Because we had the Brookside, haven't we? Exactly. Which is a very different sort of, you know, version of the vampire monster. You know, higher vampires came from a different sphere. They were not, you know, transformed into vampires. They're not humans that were transformed. They are a species that were born. And I think, you know, one of the things that we've seen throughout the past is that Geralt really does not like to kill sentient creatures.

19:26He likes to understand why they are monstrous and why they are who they are. And I think that applies to Regis. I also think Regis has, and this is just to the talent of Lawrence Fishburne, he has such a calmness about him when you meet him. You know he has secrets. You know he has darkness. But there is something I think so, he's just a truth teller. And I think we see this in their relationship throughout the entire season. He is able to say things to Geralt that no one else could get away with, even Jaskier. Yeah, he's one of my favorite characters. Again, I just constantly pinch myself because I'm like, Lawrence fucking Fishburne.

20:07Right. What? Like, seriously? 100%. Get a cape? You know? Yeah. I love also that you get to bust out that animation style for his story, because that kind of feels like it comes out of nowhere, except obviously you've done animation in the Witcher universe before. Was that ever live action or did you always think this is a chance for us to do something? It was never live action. So, you know, one of the joys of that episode, obviously, is that we go into everyone's backstory and we get to explore who they were, why they're there, what they're bringing to Arnold's journey. And Matt D 'Ambrosio, who wrote the episode, had this idea of sort of digging into these styles.

20:39and the Regis piece was the first element that we figured out because it's such its own standalone story. And the real question was like, do we have the time and the resources to set aside this whole different crew to go over and shoot the story? But also like, do we want to? Is there a more fun way to depict this? And I think especially the style of that animation is so stunning and the sort of black and white and red. It's so stark. It's so scary. And yeah, I think it's stunning. And sits brilliantly alongside what can I even describe as the mini musical. Yes. Which is an extraordinary thing to just drop in the middle of an episode.

21:19Right? Yeah. Still can't believe that Netflix let us do it. That one was quite a hard sell. And I think, you know, it's really interesting talking to Joey about it because Joey remembers how hard it was. Obviously, it was 150 dancers, a spectacular choreographer, Shelley, who came in and worked with Alex Garcia Lopez, the director. It was a completely different unit. We also had one set that had to be happy and sad. There were rain machines. It was insanity. And of course, from the outside, to me, it's nothing but pure joy. Joey is like, it is the hardest work that I've ever, ever done. But what a fun way to tell a story and exactly how Jaskier would tell his story.

22:02and when you get to you know the end of the flashback and he's standing at the campfire and he is talking about you know with his own mortality on his mind that stories live on even when people don't you're like well that's the entire point of The Witcher and I think it's just like that's something that will stick with fans because we know Jaskier has a ton of fans He's the bard He is He is Amazing, well thank you so much for your time See, we could keep doing this forever We really could but I think someone would murder me Yes, yeah очно